Progressive metal from Brazil.

SEAQUAKE (2000) GOSPEL RECORDS

  1. Seaquake
  2. Rusty Machine
  3. The First Mile
  4. The Second Mile
  5. Victory Act
  6. Without Truces
  7. Vital Blood
  8. Love In Vain
  9. Friendly Hand
  10. Dance Of The Seeds
  11. Every Pain II
  12. Inside Of Thr Eyes

  13. Faith In The Arena

    1. Arena Of Lions

    2. Winner Face

    3. Momentary Drkness

    4. The Great Preaching

Line-up:

Venāncio Domingos Neto - Bass

Renato Salles Lucindo - Lead Guitars

Alessandro A. Lucindo - Guitars

Carlos Cesar Oliveira - Vocals

Alessando Werner - Drums

The new millennium brought with it an explosion of white metal bands. Stauros was one of the first bands I heard about, and 'Seaquake' was the first album I got, thanks to my great friend in the US, Scott. The band play the usual melodic power metal with progressive touches. And the musicianship is quite good. But they do have a problem with the vocals. The man can obviously pull it off as a singer, but his English pronunciation is really bad. I also suspect that Brazilian songwriters write their songs using Spanish sentence-structure, so when they are translated into English, you get this odd way of stretching and/or bending words. It just doesn't fit very well. I did manage to overcome most of it though, and I really do enjoy this album. It rotated quite frequently when I first got it, but now it's collecting dust again.

Killer tracks: Seaquake, The First Mile, Friendly Hand

ADRIFT (2001) NOVODISC

  1. Adrift
  2. Sacred Blow
  3. Our Scream
  4. Running Again
  5. Images Away
  6. Defibulator
  7. Mercy - instrumental
  8. Bullfighter
  9. A New Chance

Line-up:

Venāncio Domingos Neto - Bass

Renato Salles Lucindo - Lead Guitars

Alessandro A. Lucindo - Guitars

Carlos Cesar Oliveira - Vocals

Alessando Werner - Drums

After playing 'Seaquake', and having great hopes for further releases from Stauros, I was actually psyched to get this one. However I'm not at all impressed. In fact I find this to be a step back from the previous album. The vocal-style is still as bad as before, and I just don't find the songs as appealing. The album do get better with more spins, but I don't suspect this to be a frequent player at all. I wish they would learn better English. Because the music is actually pretty good, varying from crunchy and powerful, to balladesque and even acoustic. They sometimes remind me of Fates Warning. Let's hope for greater things in the future.

Killer tracks: Sacred Blow, Running Again